Running Battle
by Lomonaaeren
Summary: HPLM slash. Sequel to "Battlefield." The Ministry thinks Harry should apologize for inflicting wounds on the negotiations with the vampires. Lucius thinks Harry should spend more time with him. Luckily, Harry is patient. Twoshot. COMPLETE.
1. Chapter 1

**Title:** Running Battle

 **Disclaimer:** J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.

 **Pairing:** Harry/Lucius

 **Rating:** PG-13

 **Warnings:** Violence, light angst

 **Summary:** Sequel to "Battlefield." The Ministry thinks Harry ought to be sorrier for the wounds he inflicted on the cause of negotiations with the vampires. Lucius thinks Harry ought to spend more time with him. Harry is patient with everybody.

 **Author's Notes:** This is another one of my Wednesday one-shots, for hpjk_addict, who asked for a sequel to "Battlefield," one of my Advent fics from last year. This should have two parts. You really need to read "Battlefield" first, or it won't make sense.

 **Running Battle**

"The vampires want damages for their lord. For the fires that you used in their cave. And the running water. And the artifact you destroyed."

"Oh. Is that all?"

Kingsley gave Harry a long-suffering look and shuffled some papers on his desk. Harry tucked his hands beneath his chin and fluttered his eyes.

"No. They're also talking about mental suffering, and the damage sustained to their cave in the battle, and the illusions you destroyed on the way in, and how you protected someone they should have been able to eat. What do you have to say for yourself?"

"Only this." Harry leaned forwards and yawned a little. "If they filed all those sorts of complaints with the Ministry, then they have someone—maybe a newly-turned vampire—who can still speak in something other than mindless demands for blood. So that means they should be able to negotiate with us after all, not just eat us."

Kingsley turned slowly away. They were in his office, which appeared to have walls made entirely of files. Harry looked at them and tried to estimate how many of those were about his cases. Probably at least a third.

"How come you're never any good at diplomacy when we try it? You have the intelligence."

"Hmmm."

"I think you don't _want_ to be good at it."

"That, too," said Harry, and gave Kingsley a dazzling smile when he turned around. Kingsley put his hand over his face, though, which was the signal for Harry to relent and tell him the truth. "I became an Auror to guard people and track down Dark wizards and battle monstrous creatures of the night. When I have to, I practice calligraphy on my paperwork."

"You realize that half my assistants can't decipher your _calligraphy_?"

"Hire better assistants," Harry suggested. "But I didn't become an Auror to munch little cucumber sandwiches and talk about how good Lord Fangtapper's breath smells today."

Kingsley sighed. He kept wishing he could use Harry for more duties within the Ministry, but he had seen what happened when he tried to assign Harry to those duties. "Well. Anyway. I have a new case for you."

Harry smiled. He wouldn't say "Of course you do." He had harassed Kingsley enough for today. "What is it?"

"It appears that Lucius Malfoy has received death threats and wants you to spend a week guarding him—I'm sorry, did I say something funny?"

"I'm choking. Not laughing. I'm amazed that someone was sending him death threats. He told me all these things about not being relevant anymore and how being sent as a negotiator to the vampires was his last chance to make a difference."

"Try not to either choke or laugh when you see him," Kingsley advised Harry dryly, handing over the file so Harry could look at it. "Some of these letters look like the real thing, although others might be pranks. There's one about the artistic arrangement of his intestines that I shuddered at."

Harry flicked through the letters until he found the intestine one. He read it over, and couldn't keep his lips from lifting in a satisfied smile. As Kingsley had said, it was gruesome and had the sound of someone who meant what he said.

And it was familiar.

"All right," Harry said, standing. "I assume Mr. Malfoy is still in Malfoy Manor and hasn't moved elsewhere for the duration?"

"Yes." Kingsley stared at him, no doubt trying to figure out what in the world was behind Harry's bland façade.

"Good, then." Harry flung Kingsley a salute and strode out. He heard Kingsley ask a question behind him, but luckily, Harry had shut the door and could pretend he hadn't heard it. He whistled a little as he made his way down the corridor. Let other Aurors stare at him. He was on his way to a duty he enjoyed.

He knew exactly what he would say when Lucius opened the door, too.

* * *

"Good effort on disguising your handwriting. I would have believed you didn't write _all_ of these to yourself if it wasn't for the one about the intestines. That was one of the things you told me you should have done to the vampires instead."

For a moment, Lucius's eyes watched him through the cracked door of the Manor. Then he simply nodded and waved Harry inside. "I wanted to bring you here. It worked."

"Making up death threats is Wasting an Auror's Time. A very serious crime, I'll have you know." Harry stepped into the entrance hall, looked around, and waved a hand. "Weren't there more—I don't know, sconces, here? And gold? And I think there was a mirror. I'm almost sure. Admittedly, my memories right after being grabbed by Snatchers aren't the most _reliable_ guide in the world."

"Narcissa got most of the, as you would say, sconces in the divorce." Lucius's voice was as dry as a vampire's. He leaned against the wall for a moment and watched Harry. "So serious a crime you haven't reported it to anyone in the Ministry?"

"There was one letter that was different." Harry took the one he'd moved to the top of the file and handed it to Lucius. "This was the only one you got from someone else, wasn't it?"

"Yes." Lucius had hardly glanced at it, instead watching Harry with opaque eyes. "Why come at all if you knew what I was doing?"

"Because of something you said when we were battling with the vampires. How you almost wished you'd died there, that you weren't relevant anymore. I thought without me here, you might decide high balconies looked good."

Lucius gave the ghost of a chuckle as he moved around Harry. "No, Mr. Potter. I believed that at the time. When a certain Auror grabbed me by the ear and hauled me away from the bloodthirsty creatures, I decided that I had to find something to live for."

"Nice pun on 'bloodthirsty,' I like it."

"I was not trying to pun. I never _pun_."

"Well, that was another reason I decided the first letter was genuine. It has a pun right in the first line."

Lucius gave a faint sigh and turned to nod into what Harry remembered as a vast dining room. All the furniture had been replaced by a single small table with two chairs near it, in front of the fireplace. A silver lamp stood next to that, spreading out a little circle of light. "I found a line of work I'd overlooked. Narcissa got much of the portable wealth, but nothing could remove the Malfoy properties from my name. And since my son changed his name as well, there was no way for him to contest them."

Harry cocked his head. He knew Draco becoming Draco Black had been a blow for Lucius, but he saw no reason to creep around pretending there wasn't a wound bleeding all over the floor. He wouldn't do it for most people. He saw no reason to do it for Lucius. "Why did he do that?"

"For the same reason my wife divorced me, Mr. Potter. They believed I had not served the family well. They wanted me alive, but when I was safe, they remembered that I was the one who had chosen to kneel to the Dark Lord in the first place."

"Oh? I thought that might have been your father's idea."

Lucius's head abruptly tilted backwards, and he locked his eyes on Harry's face. "Do not mistake me for a nice man, Mr. Potter. I am not. I made the decision to take the Dark Mark. Not a wise one. But I will admit my mistakes."

"Then you're halfway there."

"Halfway where?"

Harry grinned a little. It seemed the Mighty Lucius Malfoy wasn't familiar with Muggle sayings. "Everywhere you want to go," he settled for saying. "But you never told me what was so important about the properties that remain in your name."

Lucius shook his head a little and moved towards the table. "There's one of my houses in France that has extensive grounds. I made a trip there earlier this month and removed the anti-Muggle charms, then got in touch with one of my distant cousins by marriage who is a Squib. She's arranged to conduct tours over the house for me as a genuinely haunted ruin. It has a few ghosts. There is another house with extensive orchards and fields that I plan to rent out. That's what I'm making arrangements for today."

Harry stared at his back. Lucius turned around a second later and studied him as though he couldn't comprehend why Harry wasn't rushing around checking windows for weaknesses. "Why are you standing there?"

"It's just—amazing that you've managed to scrape up this much fortitude. Renting houses to Muggles, I mean. Letting them walk through them."

"They are not houses I live in. I could not bear it here."

Harry sighed audibly, making Lucius narrow his eyes at him. "Oh, good. I was afraid I'd have to go and lead a search for the kidnapped Lucius Malfoy."

"I must spend some time finalizing the arrangements and letting my steward know what is and is not an acceptable price." Lucius sat down at the table. "Are you going to check the house's perimeters? If you worry about leaving me alone, I will ask you to wait until I am done with this. I often lose my concentration when interrupted in the middle of my work."

"Oh, I don't need to leave the room," Harry said. "Not now that I've been invited inside, anyway."

Lucius turned halfway back in his chair to observe Harry as he lifted his wand. "You did not tell me you were related to vampires."

"Except for the fangs and the bloodsucking and the pallor and the aversion to running water and the liking for living under a king, I'm exactly the same. I'm surprised you didn't figure that out already."

Lucius was watching his wand so intently that he seemed to have forgotten to chuckle. Harry told himself to remember he'd have to adjust his sense of humor, and then cast.

" _Noctua finium!_ "

The air in front of his wand surged, and a pale blue owl unfolded from the tip. Harry nodded to it, and said, "The house." In a second, the owl had taken off, speeding through the wall as if it was a Patronus.

Harry leaned against the fireplace. He could feel Lucius's stewing curiosity from where he stood. He knew, sooner or later, that Lucius would have to ask. And finally he did, although there was a snap to his voice like that of breaking ice. "What spell is that?"

"The Boundary Owl Spell," Harry said, and beamed at him.

"I have never heard of it."

"Mmm, you wouldn't have."

"Was it taught at Hogwarts since I left? I can hardly believe that my son would not have mentioned such a useful spell to me."

"No." Harry paused, drawing out the tension, until Lucius was almost glaring at him and he had to remind himself that it would do no good for them to be at odds, not when Harry was supposed to spend his time protecting Lucius. "I invented it."

Lucius sat back at his table and did nothing for the whole time the owl was gone, just rapping his fingers on his papers. His eyes bored holes in Harry. Harry merrily did nothing about it, only looked at the ceiling. The owl always completed its survey of a perimeter from above.

Sure enough, about ten minutes later, the owl dropped back through the ceiling. Harry raised his arm, and the owl alighted, although the only sensation Harry could feel was a faint heat, as if he was holding his hand near a bonfire.

"Now?" he whispered, and the owl leaned in towards him and breathed out. A swirl of colors like a Portkey, except that these were exclusively shades of blue, poured out of the owl's beak and into his ear.

Harry closed his eyes. He could see an accurate map of the Manor, as surveyed by an owl in swift flight, opening on the back of his eyelids. And because of the nature of the spell, he saw, particularly, places where the already existing defenses were weak, where escape routes lurked unhindered, where certain windows might be forced open without an intruder being immediately noticed by someone in another wing.

"Six doors to the outside," Harry murmured, and heard Lucius gasp. "Three in tunnels. One in the front. The main one opening out into the grounds. And one that leads into a small room where—ah, I see, one of the shields on the wall is an always-active Portkey. I'd watch those large windows above the flowers if I were you. They're too easy to break one of the small panes, and then you have no defense for the lock, since the warding spell is keyed to the glass itself. Sloppy. You have a nice, defensive bedroom, but there's a lot of room under the bed where someone could hide if they got in. I'll have a look at that and make sure I can protect it. And those sloppy windows, too," he added, before he opened his eyes.

Lucius was sitting at his table, staring at him. He had his fingers cocked as if to hold a quill, but he'd dropped it. Harry grinned and bowed.

"You told me when we were with the vampires that simple spells often failed for you."

"They do. Although sometimes in useful ways."

"And yet you can create spells this powerful?" Lucius gestured at his shoulder, although the blue owl had disappeared completely after it had delivered the map to Harry.

"The problem is _too much_ power, most of the time." Harry shrugged. "Easier for most people to walk the house and learn the problems with eyework. And the owl does sometimes miss something. This is only for the most obvious holes or gaps in the defenses. A clever human Auror or criminal can exploit a weakness it wouldn't see." He chuckled a little. "Do stop looking at me as if you think I'm Merlin in disguise, would you?"

"Never that," Lucius said. "But I did think that your defeat of the Dark Lord was based on luck alone."

"Luck and love," Harry said firmly. He wasn't going to let anyone think differently _or_ take the credit away from the people it really belonged to, mostly his mother. "It's what I did later that's really important."

Lucius stood from the table and stalked over to him. Harry felt a sudden fluttery banging invade his heart, and wanted to scowl at himself. He had no reason to react like this, just because it…

It was the way that Lucius had reacted before when the threat of danger was past.

Lucius laid a hand on his shoulder and stared deeply into his eyes. Harry stared back. He had wondered if what had lingered for a moment before between them would ever return. This time, he hadn't just saved Lucius's life.

But it seemed that this mood could come back even without life-saving. Harry cleared his throat. "I should get on with repairing those weaknesses."

Lucius moved slowly back, but his gaze had gone heavy. "If you think you must."

Harry nodded, enchanted the fireplace mantel to warn him immediately if Lucius was in danger, and then left the dining room. He wished it didn't feel so much like he was running.

* * *

"I'm about to go upstairs, Mr. Potter. Did you want to sleep in my bedroom, or are you going to remain on patrol?"

Harry smiled and drew a vial of rusty red potion out of his pocket. He saw Malfoy focus on it immediately, but he was too polite to question it, only lifting his eyes to Harry and waiting for the conclusion.

"This is a variant of Pepper-Up," Harry explained. "Keeps you awake and gives you some extra strength." He gulped it in one motion—the only drawback of the potion was its utterly _foul_ taste—and rose to his feet. "Thanks to the excellent meal you served me earlier, I shouldn't have any trouble remaining awake all night."

"The food is necessary to interact with the potion?"

"Yes. You _don't_ want to take this potion on an empty stomach."

"I shall endeavor never to do so." Lucius rose slowly to his feet, not taking his eyes from Harry. Harry stared back, wondering what Lucius would come up with next. He moved slowly towards Harry.

Harry knew he could step back or ask Lucius what was going on if he wanted to. He also knew he would miss out on some interesting currents flowing between him and Lucius if he did that. He remained still, and Lucius laid his hand along Harry's cheek and smiled at him.

"You are braver than you know," Lucius said softly. "And more powerful, and more intriguing. If I had known what would come from you simply acting as a bodyguard during my visit to the vampires, I would have employed you long since."

"I don't know if I can be _braver_ than I know. I think I'm pretty brave. But I'm willing to accept the other compliments."

"Good." Lucius moved away from him in the same leisurely manner, drifting like a tropical fish around a coral reef. "Perhaps tomorrow, or whenever this danger resolves, we can discuss what else you'd be willing to accept."

Harry nodded. "Perhaps we can."

Lucius gave him one faint smile and said, "Good night, Mr. Potter." Then he walked out of the study, and Harry silently listened to his footsteps ascending the stairs. Every one of _them_ was also enchanted to cry out in case Lucius got in trouble walking up them.

But none of them did. And a second later, Harry felt the special spells engage that meant Lucius had made it to his heavily warded bedroom. He smiled and began the first steady, soft beat of his patrol.

It led him out of the dining room, to the right down a corridor that stretched out far enough Harry could imagine past Malfoys making their house-elves run up and down it when they wanted to be sadists, and then past the back windows that led into the garden. Harry felt his breathing picking up a little. He had replaced the defective enchantments on the glass, but he had left enough tempting dangling threads of magic that someone who had scouted out the house might still try to make this their entrance.

A slow pacing along the side of the windows produced no results. And when Harry turned and whirled on his heels, there was no one there, either. Harry shook his head and relaxed a little.

 _There might be no one trying tonight. If I was the criminal, I would definitely wait a few days to see what the new protector's strengths were._

But then Harry turned sharply back, because he could hear some small turning sounds. He looked around wildly, thinking for a moment that someone was actually attacking the windows there.

Luckily, he remembered the fact that he'd cast other spells in different places in the Manor to alert him if someone tried to break into them there. This one was a passive, simple Listening Charm, letting him hear what was happening nearby. And he'd cast that one…

On one of the escape tunnels.

Harry immediately began to run. The soft, rippling echoes of his own footsteps came back to him as he hurtled through moonlit corridors. There was almost nothing to muffle them. All the tapestries were gone.

In the meantime, Harry's thoughts were at work. Who could know about the escape tunnels? People hired by Draco and Narcissa Black, as they were now?

But no, Harry didn't think they would have betrayed Lucius in that way. Lucius had said they wanted him alive and safe, just not around anymore.

Harry cornered fast, and spun around as he arrived at the entrance of the tunnel. It had probably been better-hidden when the Manor was better-decorated. If nothing else, Lucius could have hung a tapestry across the shimmering lines in the wall.

The soft unscrewing sound was coming directly from behind the door.

Harry counted to five under his breath while he triggered a few wordless spells around the door that he'd cast earlier. Then he stepped back and slammed the wand down in a sharp tap against the door.

The spells triggered at once. One made the wall transparent, so Harry could see behind it. Another outlined the door itself with glimmering blue flames, cool and harmless, but capable of making people stare and throwing off delicate operations.

And the third made a fireball bloom into existence next to Harry's ear. If his suspicions were correct, he'd need it. If they weren't, well, a fireball was always useful.

The people in the tunnel glanced up in shock. They were carefully using cloths wrapped around parts of the door to unscrew the stones. They had no wands. And they crouched and snarled when they saw the flames around the door, showing teeth that flashed too long and too crystalline to be human.

 _Yep. Vampires._

Harry flung the door open and sent the fireball into motion, skimming down the tunnel above the vampires like a rubber ball on a string. He pulled it back with a sharp snap of his wrist when it had caught a few with their hair on fire and made them bolt.

 _And of course they'd attack here._ Technically, the tunnels were ways to get around the usual vampire prohibition of needing to be invited inside, because they weren't "real" entrances; they were deliberately kept secret and deliberately avoided the wards.

Harry was already casting as he landed in front of the nearest vampire. " _Innocens! Sopio! Stupefy!_ "

As he had feared might happen, the Stunner had no impact. Vampires weren't affected by a lot of magic that would bring a human down. The one he'd tried to Stun leaped over the other two and ran up the tunnel after the ones who had already fled because of their burning hair.

His first two spells had caught the first duo in line, though. Harry turned around to look at them with satisfaction. The Harmless Curse made the vampire it had caught blink at him like a baby, innocent in mind, and the other one was asleep as profoundly as if it was in its coffin at the bottom of a grave.

"Good vampires," Harry muttered, and led them into the corridor.

Lucius was waiting for them, wrapped in a robe that showed some luxury Harry would rather have left to his imagination. He tilted up an eyebrow absurdly when he saw Harry. Harry shrugged back.

"Sorry for waking you up. In the meantime, I think these two might tell us something interesting once we have them trapped in a silver cage. You have one, right?"

"Remarkable."

"You _don't_ have a silver cage. How sad. I'll just have to conjure one, then."

"No. I meant you."

Harry paused. The heat in Lucius's eyes made the shimmer of the fireball beside Harry's ear suddenly feel small.

 _Not until I'm off the case,_ Harry sternly reminded himself, and nodded to the sleeping vampire. "Can you Levitate that one? The other will follow of its own free will."

"Remarkable Harry Potter, whose Levitation Charms don't often hold."

"Right on," Harry said, and smiled back at Lucius. He still had a sense of humor.

 _This might work after all._

There were lots of things those words might refer to, and Harry decided that he didn't care about exploring all of them in depth right now. He had vampires to interrogate.


	2. Chapter 2

Thanks for the reviews! This is the end of this story, but not of the series; there will be one more entry, one of the Advent fics I'll be posting in December.

"I don't know how you can interrogate something that simply screams and spits blood at you."

"You'd be surprised. At least this one isn't trying to vomit its organs all over me."

Lucius paused. Harry wasn't looking at him, but at the silver cage he'd conjured and the vampire who kept trying to bend the bars and get out. It didn't matter. He could _feel_ that pause, and the relentless curiosity that followed.

"When was that?"

"Oh, it wasn't a vampire. It was some sort of vulture-monster thing. Some vultures vomit as a defense. This one tried to vomit its organs. That's all."

"What an interesting life you've led."

Harry grinned back at Lucius once, and then approached the cage. The vampire inside, the one he'd had under the Harmless Curse, spat again and clawed at the bars. It snatched its hand back a minute later and cradled it against its chest. Harry shook his head. Whatever intelligence they had when alive and then for a little while after they'd turned, a lot of vampires ended up pretty bloody stupid. They seemed to rejoice in handing over all their brains to a Lord or to their predatory instincts or whatever.

"Now," said Harry, and made a small cut on his wrist with his wand. The vampire sat up at once and traced his movements with eyes so wide that they looked as if they'd fall out. Well, weirder things had happened when Harry was confronting vampires.

"For you," said Harry, and held out his wrist towards the bars. He had to achieve the right angle, not in between them, or the vampire would haul at him and probably break his arm, but not far away, because the vampire would simply burn its hands on the silver again—

He'd done it right. The vampire grabbed his wrist and started greedily sucking on the wound. Harry hid his grimace and cast a spell that probably only a vampire Lord would have known how to resist, anyway, but it certainly _was_ good that the vampire was too caught up in its feeding to notice.

" _Mentis effigia_."

The Mental Image spell could only work when there was a powerful connection between the caster and the person whose mind he wanted to see into, and it didn't work on someone who was an Occlumens. On the other hand, it was excellent at piercing, as Legilimency could not, through barriers that were formed by sheer masses of nonhuman instinct.

Squinting, Harry saw the shadowy images form up behind the vampire's eyes and troop out to line up in front of its face. They were blood-tinted as well as bloodthirsty, of course, but that wasn't a surprise when he'd used blood to form the initial connection anyway.

The first few didn't help much: the vampires squirming through the Manor's defenses, dancing around their lair where Harry and Lucius had confronted them, waving their hands under a full moon. Then he saw one that did. The vampire Lord he and Lucius had fought stood in front of an inhumanly still mass of other vampires, hands raised, and roared out words that sounded like someone retching through a mouthful of meat.

"Got you," Harry muttered, grinning. The vampires had always pretended they could barely negotiate with the Ministry, that they would react on a hair trigger and eat anyone who didn't obey their odd and constantly changing customs. But here was one that was intelligent enough to speak of its plans.

That might only be because the Lord had fed on the blood of all its minions, of course. Harry remembered hearing that mentioned once as a theory for why some Lords acted intelligent and others didn't. But either way, it meant the defense that vampires were essentially animals had been shot to pieces.

The plans were elaborate ones. The Lord talked about foiling Ministry Aurors who were trying to capture vampires and a war with werewolves before he got to the topic of Lucius. But when he did, Harry had to pause. Because the plans involved _him_ , too.

" _Destroy them both. The negotiator who would not negotiate and the Auror who humiliated us. The negotiator will summon the Auror soon, and then you may move. Go through the doorways that need no invitation. Dig in the earth until you find them. The negotiator comes from a kin that will make such traps._ "

Harry grimaced. No one had betrayed the existence of Lucius's escape tunnels, after all. The vampire Lord had simply used psychology to decide it was likely they would exist, if Lucius was who he presented himself as. And he had been right.

"Potter? _Potter!_ "

Harry winced as something ripped him free of the vampire's fangs and whirled him away from the cage, and around. His wrist was still trapped in place by the feeding vampire's mouth, and having his skin shred and tear was unpleasant. So were the screams as the vampire reached after him, burned its hands on the silver again, and began to steadily howl.

"What?" Harry asked in irritation, casting a spell that would clot his blood faster and another one that would seal over the wound. Lucius was staring at him as if Harry had stepped out in front of the Hogwarts Express. "I don't know if you could hear and see the images from the spell, but I was gathering valuable information there."

"You were standing still as a vampire drained you to death. You look as if you are about to faint from blood loss."

"Oh, _look_."

Lucius glared at him in a way that made Harry want to laugh, except Lucius would probably be unhappy about that, too. Harry sighed and cast a spell that cleaned up the blood that had spilled from the wound onto the bars and the carpet. "The vampire Lord waited to send his people in until you summoned me to talk about the letters—the lett _er_. He's cleverer than we thought, and he wanted to get both of us at once."

"Take a step."

"Beg pardon?" Harry looked up. He would have thought Lucius was more interested in hearing about the vampires who could have killed him if Harry wasn't there. On the other hand, maybe he wasn't getting much because of the vampire's moaning howl.

"I want to see you walk."

"This is about wanting to judge the length or strength of my legs, is it?" Harry straightened up and moved away from the cage. "I promise, they're more than long enough to wrap around your waist _if_ I decide that's what I want to do with them—"

Abruptly he sagged. Astonished, Harry tried to catch himself, but he ended up putting his hand on Lucius's arm because that was what was there. Harry shook his head and tried to look around, but Lucius was fussing over him as if he was a baby who'd hurt his head.

 _Or as if he was Aunt Petunia and I'm Dudley_. The thought was so horrifying that Harry tried to push Lucius away, but Lucius only leveled him with a glare that would have done Snape proud.

"You're weak from blood loss," Lucius snapped. "You stood there for _minutes_ while he drained you. And then you have the gall to refuse my concern and decide that banter is more important than resting—shut _up!_ "

He cast a spell that silenced the vampire. Harry looked over and saw there was a bow wrapped around its neck, cutting off sound. The vampire clawed at it, but Harry wasn't worried. It wasn't like the damn things needed to breathe.

"As I was saying," Lucius continued, in a voice he seemed to deliberately lower now that he could, "you are going to rest. In the most luxurious bed I have. And then you are going to eat whatever the house-elves bring you. Including beef broth, if that's what it is. And orange slices. Do you understand me, Mr. Potter?"

"It's Auror Potter, you know," Harry muttered. He did feel kind of weak and dizzy, although he told himself he leaned more heavily on Lucius's arm just to annoy him. "I did earn the title and everything." He swayed, and Lucius made a disgusted sound and cast a charm on him that let him scoop Harry off the floor.

"You earned it with blood, I suppose you will tell me," said Lucius, as he stepped efficiently through the door that had opened up in front of them. Harry blinked, wondering where the house-elf was that had opened it. Or maybe that was part of the magic of the Manor.

"Of course I did. Well, and pain, and training, and experience." Which didn't include many experiences with being carried around like he was a slab of meat, Harry had to admit. "Put me down," he added.

"No, I don't think I will. You need someone who can be trusted to recognize when you're dying of blood loss."

"You can be trusted, obviously. Can you be trusted to put me down?"

"No, because you can't be trusted on your feet."

"That joke is played out now, Lucius," Harry objected, in the moment before Lucius paused before a heavy oaken door, frowned at it, and turned abruptly away. Another set of stairs and a mahogany door later, Harry snorted a little. "Did you get lost in your own house?"

"No, I simply changed my mind about where to put you," Lucius said, as he nudged open this door with Harry's feet. "The guest rooms are well-protected, but not as much as these." He smugly put Harry down on a bed that felt like a cloud and gestured around. "Where do you think you are, Mr. Potter?"

Harry blinked around. He could tell nothing from the colors of the walls, he thought, or the paneling used on them. It was clearly expensive, but so was most of the paneling in the whole house. He did know there was a faint blue and red tinge to the paneling that kept it from being as dark as the wood might otherwise be. And there was a window in the wall that showed nothing except a gigantic, floating silver M.

"The theater where you show your guests the glories of the Malfoy family in days gone by?" Harry finally asked, gesturing at the window with one hand. It shook, and he scowled and lowered it into his lap. Damn vampires.

Lucius nodded slowly. "Judicious use of humor, Mr. Potter. But no. These are my rooms, the most comfortable and well-guarded in the whole house."

Harry froze again, the way he had a terrible habit of doing with Lucius. It seemed Lucius would say something that _ought_ to be ordinary and condescending. Harry had dealt with any number of condescending pure-bloods since he became an Auror. He knew how to smile and nod and keep his comebacks to himself.

But with Lucius, he just didn't _have_ any comebacks. He turned abruptly towards him and found his nose almost pressed to Lucius's chest, he was so close to the bed and Harry in it. Harry leaned further back and tried not to think about the fact that Lucius might sleep pressed up close to these silky pillows every night. "And you don't mind blood in your bed?"

"You won't be shedding any while you sleep here," Lucius said, and again paused, the way he had before the door of the guest room. Then he shook his head. "No, not even if I _did_ decide to take you the way I might like to. I am gentle and considerate enough that no lover of mine has ever bled."

Harry stared blankly at Lucius. He had expected sly innuendo, not a blatant declaration.

But he could handle that mode, too, if he had to. "What makes you think you'd be the one doing the taking?"

Lucius smiled, a flashing thing like an unsheathed blade. Harry found himself wondering for a moment why Lucius didn't use _this_ smile more often when he was trying to reestablish himself in the Ministry and the wizarding world. It would make a better weapon than the habitual sneers.

"Why, Mr. Potter," Lucius whispered, easing closer, "the fact that I'm an excellent lover and have never had any complaints might have something to do with it."

"An excellent lover is someone who does equally well on top and bottom."

"Well, of course," said Lucius, as if he hadn't expected any other answer, and so equably that Harry eyed him in suspicion. "That's why we should definitely try both. It's not what we do first, it's what we do in the long run."

He turned away before Harry could say anything and added, "I think you might as well rest for a while. I'll have a house-elf bring you some food, but I doubt you'll go to sleep that fast. I'm sure you don't mind if it takes a few minutes."

"What happens if the vampire gets loose, or someone else tries to break into your house?" Harry yelled at his back. "And you didn't have much sleep, either!"

"Why, I'm going to make arrangements right now for the further securing of the vampires you captured and the tunnel they came through. And then I'll come back and sleep here with you, of course. _Do_ try to eat quickly."

Harry spent a minute staring at the door after Lucius left. Then he buried his head in his hands and laughed and laughed.

The elf who appeared a few minutes later, holding a tray that, yes, had a steaming bowl of beef broth on it, and some orange slices, regarded Harry with something close to terror. Harry, his eyes streaming with tears and his stomach shaking too hard to say anything, just pointed at an elaborate carved table next to the bed. The elf brought it closer in silence, arranged what looked like a spoon made of pure silver and a tiny peeling knife on the tray, and then vanished with a little squeak and pop.

When Harry managed to calm down, he reached for the food. He had to admit he was hungry. Dinner seemed like a long time ago, as elaborate and inventive as it had been.

He ate slowly, savoring the steaming mouthfuls, but by the time he had finished, Lucius still hadn't reappeared. Harry licked the last of the orange juice from his fingers and lay down thoughtfully, looking from the door to the ceiling.

He would probably have trouble getting to sleep, no matter what Lucius thought. Sleeping in general was bad enough, with his mind's tendency to run around like a squirrel in a cage; sleeping in a strange place was worse. And he honestly couldn't remember the last time he had spent a night with someone in the same bed. Probably one of the times he had been bringing a criminal out of wilderness surrounded with anti-Apparition spells into which he'd tracked them.

But maybe it was the place, maybe it was the laughter, maybe it was the blood loss, maybe it was drugs in the food. Harry found himself sliding swiftly closer and closer to sleep, not lifting his head in the direction of every tiny noise the way he usually did.

When Lucius slid into bed behind him and pressed one hand on his shoulder, apparently the only way he planned to touch Harry, Harry didn't start, either. He shifted away sleepily, and felt the pressure behind his ear that was probably a kiss without caring what it was.

He couldn't remember the last time he had been so comfortable, either.

* * *

"Good morning."

Harry had actually been lying awake for a few minutes, staring at the ivory-colored shell of sheets above him and trying to figure out where he was without taxing his brain too much. He rolled over until he was face-to-face with Lucius, who looked smug enough for five Ministry politicians.

"Good morning," Harry said, and waited. The only thing that happened, though, was the smugness fading from Lucius's face, until he looked almost normal. Harry waited some more, and finally Lucius spoke.

"You didn't ask me if I secured the vampires and the tunnel."

"I know you wouldn't have come to bed until you finished business." Harry propped himself up on his elbow and reached out to trace a finger around Lucius's nose. Lucius didn't try to follow the path of his hand. He just lay there and looked steadily into Harry's face. "I think you always put business in front of pleasure. That might be one reason we've managed to get along so well, don't you think?"

"If the business was negotiating with the vampires, I will remind you I failed at that."

"I was thinking about the business of saving your life."

"I am hurt, Mr. Potter," Lucius said evenly, raising one hand so he could entwine his fingers around Harry's, "to learn that you do not regard that as a pleasure."

Harry had to smile. And this time, with them meeting eye-to-eye, both conscious, both wanting it, he bent down and kissed Lucius.

Lucius gasped in so sharply and thinly that it sounded like someone whistling instead of breathing. He lifted his hands and held them hovering over Harry's head as though he was going to bring them down, but couldn't force himself to do it. Harry kissed as long as he wanted, thinking about the little flashes of warmth that stabbed him, and the way Lucius's hair spread out around his face, and how wide his eyes got when he was surprised.

Then Harry pulled back and rested his chin on one hand and waited to see what happened next.

What that was, apparently, was Lucius swallowing and sitting up. "I never thought you had that kind of boldness in you, Mr. Potter."

Harry shook his head sadly. "And you've been with me in a battle situation against vampires _and_ seen the way I fought Death Eaters. I don't know, Lucius. I think you might have a problem defining boldness."

Lucius narrowed his eyes in a way that made him look like a cat offended by the fish it had been offered. "Do you think I should give it another try?" His left hand had sneaked behind Harry's hair and touched his neck here and there as if looking for hidden defenses.

"You probably should." Harry rolled bonelessly to the side and closed his eyes as Lucius smoothed a thumb up the nape of his neck. "Ahhhh."

"You seem fully-recovered."

"You and your house-elves do good work."

"I suppose you will want to leave and report to the Ministry."

"If you feel the threat is resolved," Harry said, his mind clicking with a groan back into work-related thoughts. "I don't want to leave you alone if more vampires could come through the tunnel or if—"

Lucius stopped him with his thumb on Harry's lips. Harry blinked and thought about sucking the finger into his mouth, but he didn't think this was the right moment for that.

Or the right mood, given the intent way Lucius stared into his face. Harry wished he could show him what he was looking for, but Harry had no idea what that was. All he could do was return the stare, open and honest and intense.

Lucius finally nodded and leaned in. But he didn't kiss Harry, instead whispering against his mouth, "You will need to go back to the Ministry and tell them what you learned from our captive. They are the right ones to take charge of the vampires you captured and decide what should be done about the danger to one of their best Aurors."

Harry nodded without taking his gaze from Lucius.

"But you should _also_ ," Lucius said, and touched his slightly wet thumb to Harry's chin, drawing it across, "not leave right yet."

And he kissed Harry slowly, fingers splayed out across the wet streak on his jaw, pressing him back into soft pillows.

Harry went with it, little jolts of heat stabbing him again. He doubted they would do more than kiss today. He also didn't think he minded that.

He had _earned_ the right to lie here and let Lucius be as confusing and pleasant as he wanted to be. And he had earned the right to think about the future and what the future might contain, too.

 _More of this,_ Harry thought, as the heat intensified, and wrapped his fingers in Lucius's hair.

 **The End.**


End file.
